Peterborough 2007 – The Whole Story…

On Friday, March 3^rd 2007 our alarm clock woke us up at 3 am – no we didn’t really want to get up but we had to and besides it was to be our first journey to the land of the Shire Horse! We showered had a cup of coffee and headed for the airport – first by car then per train.

We arrived being first as usual – we did live nearest to the airport anyway. Karin and Tom came from the Swabian Alb and Stefan, Biggi, Michael and Jessi came from Esslingen. We met at the bistro and all had ourselves a cup of coffee – except for – no, it wasn’t me, right Mr. Snooperman…

The flight was easy going (thank God to that – after Tina and my last ones being really horrible!). Arriving in London-Stansted the others got their rental car. Not us – no way – we had to make phone calls and get picked up – shitty SIXT car rental – never book a car with them if you land in Stansted – chaos! Ha-ha, and then they wanted to give us a Fiesta – WTF! After having a good laugh we got a Mondeo and headed north.

  On our way to Peterborough we met the others again and had ourself a grand English breakfast. After eating 3 days worth of calories all at once we drove to the Hotel Marriot. We didn’t really find our way at first – good that Tom and Karin knew the way – „Excuse me, I have to drive to Gate 14! “ - „OMG, everything’s changed?!“ Well, in the end we made it. The rooms weren’t available yet so we had ourselves a couple of Murphy’s at the hotel bar, which was actually opened up just for us.

After that we went to the show grounds, which we were actually able to visit in the end. There wasn’t much going on – it was Friday – but the horses we did see were fabulous and x-tra large. We met Birgit who was sitting on a bench shivering – it was cold – damn it! She had booked a shitty motel but was able to get another room at the nearby Holiday Inn. We had a small talk and then went back to our hotel room where we took a very much needed nap...

In the evening we had to dress up for the English Shire Horse Society Dinner. Stefan was able to freshen up his English sitting beside a nice woman who was responsible for the English studbook. I had to cut our meat which I handled pretty well, although our Austrian friend Kurti at the other table did a much better job than me.

A couple of speeches – even one from our president Ben (he did a quite fair job of it) and then the dinner was over. In the Public Bar we got to meet our friends from Switzerland: Regula, Tatjana and Debbie – a hearty welcome that was! We had a couple of Guinness with them – Debbie hated it so I got to drink hers, too. After that, one last beer in the hotel bar and off to bed – the first and easiest day was over

And then came Saturday - WOA! Again a grand English breakfast and then Karin, Tina and me left at 8 am for the show grounds – the others were still fast asleep. Horses, horses and more horses – everybody running around doing something – preparing something – fabulous and crazy. We met with Tony and Sandra Bull and Karin immediately started to help them – could this woman ever sit down – no, she couldn’t! Tina and me walked through the stables and met a couple from Hamburg we knew from the German Breeding Show last year in Darmstadt

The geldings were already being judged – they were pretty overweight – every time they moved I had to think of damaged shock absorbers… After that the foals – nice. We again met Birgit and Anne. And then there he was Michael „Stingray“ with his lovely wife. It was really nice to see them again. We also met with Suse and Klaus and Sabine.

Tina and I watched the riding class with Stefan and Biggi, who had just arrived at the show grounds. I mean, I know that I’m far from a good horse rider but what I witnessed that day was rubbish. Fat women hobbling on the backs of their horses – OMG! Only two riders (obviously from the same stable) could actually ride and they did win the class in the end.   

In the main ring the stallion class was being judged. Holy shit – grand horses each and every one of them. I would have chosen them all but Karin, who is a judge herself pointed out a couple of things I would never have seen and in the end she had always picked the winners..

Between that we got to see wagons and coaches and wagons and coaches all decorated for the event being pulled by mighty Shire Horses – left me pretty speechless at the moment! Tony Bull’s stallion Arclid Minshull Monty won his class (4 year old stallions) which all made us happy. And then it was time for the showdown – all the winners of the stallion classes were to compete against each other to determine the Overall Champion 2007. After two long hours (no nap today!) the judges had made their decision – Arclid Minshull Monty was the Overall Champion 2007. A beautiful horse, which had deserved to win, although not everybody shared the same opinion. It was a hard fight and as always someone had something else to say…

The final parade stole our breath away and then we went back to the hotel. We wanted to get dressed for Regula’s birthday party. At the hotel we had a very interesting talk with Dr. Mengeler. Afterwards we had to have dinner on the show grounds because every other place was booked up. It was shitty but we were hungry because we had had only Fish & Chips during the whole long day. We were actually dead tired and went to the Hotel Orton Hall where we met our also dead tired friends. We couldn’t really get a party going and instead went to bed  - actually dropped dead into bed…

Sunday we took it easy. We had breakfast pretty late, checked out and went back to the show grounds. We walked through the stables to see the horses again – and again Karin wanted to help. The harness class was fantastic – beautiful - a bit like Christmas…

I talked to a couple of people concerning our own breeding show in Germany. And after that we finally held a toast on Regula’s birthday. We ate hamburgers andsaid our goodbyes and headed for Stansted.

Just as we wanted to drive along it started to snow and hail and great gusts of wind blew strongly. The weather was quite fair on Friday and Saturday but getting colder and windier everyday. Saturday night a couple of vendor tents had been blown way, too. On Sunday it was really cold and now this – brrr!

In Stansted Tom, Karin, Tina and me checked into a guesthouse I had known from our vacation in Scotland the year before – we actually found it immediately which actually was a great pleasure for our ladies – the drive had taken a fair time. We went to the Indian restaurant on the other side of the road – had a great meal and a couple of drinks reviewing the past weekend – a very nice evening to finish everything up.

On Monday we arrived very tired at the airport just in time to get a bottle of Single Malt and then it was flying back to good ol’ Germany. We said goodbye to Karin and Tom and drove back home. I stayed there and did a little housework while Tina rushed to our stable. Tina came back with bright shining eyes and said, “You know what, our horse is still the most beautiful of them all!”